Caroline Gleich

Salt Lake » Big Cottonwood Canyon » Brighton » Millicent Peak

Elevator chute, Mt. Millicent

10,500'

Northeast

38°

Skier

Intentionally Triggered

Wet Slab

New Snow

New Snow/Old Snow Interface

12"

300'

1,000'

We were concerned about warming on the face of Mt. Millicent as we were skinning up the ridge to ski the Elevator Chute. On our way up, we triggered a small-medium sized wet slough, about 200' below the summit. After ensuring no one was below us, we did another ski cut up too, at the entrance to the line. Initially, the first ski cut just caused some minor roller balls to fall. We decided to do another ski cut, and we triggered a 6" - 1' deep - 60' wide slide that ran down the elevator chute. Below the chute, it stepped into another layer and caused a good portion of the bowl to slide. We watched it run over the first bench, and thought it would stop, but it kept running through the trees and rocks in Milicent Bowl, snapping an evergreen or two, and ended up stopping on the flats, 1000' below. We were impressed by the force that this slab ran with. It created an impressive plume of snow as it ran over the second bench and cliff bands, we were really surprised it ran so far. In the morning, the snow had been getting some heating from a green housing effect and it was damp, but it was still in between a wet snow avalanche and a dry snow avalanche. The bed surface was not particularly slick, but the wind slab was getting quite wet and heavy, and cohesive. The crown broke deeper on the lookers left side of the bowl, indicating some wind loading during the last storm.